Day 16 of Philadelphia Eagles training camp was an open practice at Lincoln Financial Field, and the offense struggled for most of the night. As always, we have notes. • Riq Woolen had a big day in the second joint practice with the Patriots last week. He had another great practice in front of the fans at the Linc, making two INTs. On the first INT, he stood in front of a pass in the middle of the field intended for Makai Lemon. He then separated from Lemon and had a good return. On his second INT, Jalyx Hunt received quick pressure while working against Fred Johnson. Jalen Hurts panicked and threw an ill-advised pass down the sideline intended for DeVonta Smith, but Woolen stepped in front of it and took it to the house. Woolen will see plenty of targets this season with opposing quarterbacks avoiding Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean. My bet: He will lead the team in INT. I thought the offense was overall sloppy. Hurts had both INTs, as noted above. There were at least four false starts that I counted. There were at least three bad drops, by DeVonta Smith, Darius Cooper and Hollywood Brown in the end zone. Cooper stopped in his route on what looked like a good throw by Tanner McKee. The offense made a handful of good plays, as we will detail below. but for the 16th practice of camp, it was a little too sloppy for my liking. The Eagles had some offensive linemen out, which certainly contributed to the sloppiness to some extent: Landon Dickerson didn’t practice. Drew Kendall replaced LG. Markel Bell remained out with thumb and leg injuries. Lane Johnson practiced, but not for long. He left early and Fred Johnson replaced him. It was unclear if Johnson changed anything, but he watched the rest of practice from the sideline. Jordan Mailata came out several times. He’s fine. Every time he went out, John Ojukwu replaced LT. Before Lane left for the night, Nolan Smith hit him clean for a sack. As we’ve noted in our training camp battle tracker, Smith has really improved in recent weeks. He and Hunt will most likely start Week 1. • DeVonta Smith practiced Monday for the first time since Aug. 3, but it was a short practice and there wasn’t much to see. Made several good plays in open practice at Linc. He got open deep against Quinyon Mitchell, but Hurts beat him and Mitchell was able to make the PBU. But that would have been a touchdown with a good throw. He separated into a deep curl against Mitchell, rising high for a good catch as Mitchell closed in from behind. He made a very good contested catch against Woolen in the deep to middle part of the field. He brought it in and started the engines, separating from Woolen. Smith took a bad fall as mentioned above, but hey, whatever. After watching all of the Eagles’ “other” receivers all summer, it’s very clear that DeVonta outsizes all of them, and it’s not even close. He is going to achieve a lot of goals this season. • Makai Lemon had a semi-active practice. He caught a ton of short passes and was left open for a touchdown on a blown coverage. One thing I liked and saw in Lemon was the aggressiveness with which he tried to block Nolan Smith on a running play. He was on top of Smith like an angry mosquito. Smith eventually threw Lemon to the ground, but the block served its purpose. Smith even helped Lemon up and patted him on the helmet, in gratitude for his efforts. Hurts was able to connect with Dontayvion Wicks twice and Hollywood Brown once on deep crosses. Brown was able to run for a touchdown on his reception after the catch. Spoiler: There will be a lot of crossovers in this offense, at all levels of the field. • The throw and catch of the night was probably Hurts to Saquon Barkley for a touchdown on what I guess I’d call a corner route. Zack Baun had good coverage and didn’t leave much room for error, but Hurts got his throw over Baun, and Barkley made it look like a tough catch with Baun’s body likely shielding his vision on the catch. I think Barkley’s receiving totals will go up a bit this season. • Moro Ojomo had a couple of sacks. (Yawn). I feel like I write that after every practice. • Kick returners: Britain Covey, Cooper DeJean, Makai Lemon, Elijah Moore. • First-team kick returners: Will Shipley and Tank Bigsby. And of course Covey can do that too. I made it a point to check the gunners during special teams drills. It was Kelee Ringo, Darius Cooper and 10 other guys who are definitely not on the team. Additionally, Ringo was the first player on the first team offense when Woolen came out to make a play after his INT. I think Ringo’s encouraging performances in the two preseason games will be enough for him to survive the final cuts. • The Eagles will have one more practice on Wednesday, then a game on Friday against the Bengals at 8 pm Side note: Really? At 8 pm on a Friday night for a third preseason game? REALLY?!) And then the Eagles will start cutting it to 53.
